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“This morning?” he said, wondering what the old coot was talking about.

“Lauds! I was waiting for you at five o’clock!”

“Oh, damn,” he said, earning himself a scowl from the priest. “I mean, shoot. I totally forgot to set my alarm clock.” In actual fact he had no intention whatsoever to sit down with Father Reilly eight times a day to pray, and do daily mass and confession on top. He might as well join a convent, which actually was starting to sound like a pretty good idea.

“You made a promise to me and to yourself, Alec,” said the priest, adopting a stern tone. “Not to mention to the Lord Jesus Christ who is Your Savior. Do you want to be healed or not? And, more important, do you want to have a future in this town or not?”

Alec rolled his eyes.“Look, I…”

But whatever he wanted to say was wiped from his lips when a curious sight suddenly arrested his attention: up and down the street a horde of zombies were staggering, followed by a horde of Hampton Covians, walking at a safe distance, carrying clubs and sticks, and clearly wondering what was going on, same way he was.

Father Reilly had turned and was now taking in the strange spectacle.“End times,” he suddenly whispered. “The end times are upon us.”

“It’s zombies, father,” said Alec. “Nothing to do with end times.”

“Chief Alec!” one of the people passing by yelled. “You have to help us! These zombies are everywhere!”

“I’m not your chief anymore,” he yelled, but still wondered what could be done about this sudden invasion of weirdos.

“Looks like we’ve got bigger fish to fry than Lauds, father,” he said, and took out his phone.

When it connected, Chase immediately said,“We’ve got a big problem here, Alec.”

“Yeah, I can see that. My street is being overrun by zombies. There must be at least two dozen of them.”

“Same thing here. Mayor Butterwick has called the County Executive, who’s called the Governor, who’s called in the army. Let’s hope they can contain this thing.”

“What do you want me to do, Chase?”

“They don’t seem to attack people right now,” said Chase, “but they are attracted to bodies of water. Still, I’d advise everyone to lock themselves up in their houses, make sure all doors and windows are fastened and secured, and sit tight.” He sighed. “This thing is out of our hands,I’m afraid. Once the army gets here…”

“Yeah, it’s over and out for us,” said Alec. Chase disconnected, and Alec turned to Father Reilly. “You better go home, father. And pray that this will all be over soon.”

But suddenly a zombie must have spotted them, for he came lumbering up at surprising speed.

“Father, watch out!” Alec yelled, and Father Reilly squealed and hid behind the former chief’s broad back.

But instead of attacking them, the zombie dove into Alec’s small fish pond instead!

“My koi!” Alec cried. “The nasty piece of work is going for my koi!”

Father Reilly, emerging from behind Alec, gulped a little, then said, wiping beads of sweat from his brow,“Maybe I will do as you suggest, my son. Go home and pray. And you better do the same thing. May God help us all.” And then he practically jumped into his car, and led it careening out of the driveway and racing off, tires burning rubber.

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Vesta, who didn’t give a hoot about zombies, or the Peppard Pet Food Company, thought it was a disgrace. The biggest news in town should be her pregnancy, and now her thunder was being stolen by these stupid zombies and her cats wanting to eat some new kind of kibble. Not fair!

Her camera crew had taken off, presumably to go and film some more zombies, Odelia had disappeared, and so had Marge and Tex. And when she approached Zebediah Clam, to ask him about the next step in her procedure, she found him watching TV, nervously biting his nails.

“More zombies,” she said as she saw what he was watching. “Who cares, right?”

“The idiot,” said the doctor. “The total, absolute moron.”

“Look, Doc,” said Vesta, who couldn’t agree more. “I’ve been thinking, and I’m inclined to go with Chris Pratt. He’s handsome, he’s funny, he’s talented. Any woman would be lucky to have his baby, and so I’ve decided to pick him. I mean, Chris Pine, Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans are okay, but for my money I’m going to bet on him to deliver me a dream baby.”

But to her surprise, Doc Clam wasn’t even listening.

“The idiot!” he grunted as he watched the screen, where more zombies had taken to the streets, and were now walking in their typical lumbering gait. There was footage of zombies jumping into fountains, zombies jumping into the lake, zombies being dragged out of bathtubs and shower cabins, and even the local spa had reported having to pick zombies out of their sauna cabins. It was a regular invasion! And the frantic newscaster who kept yelling at the top of her voice didn’t help either.